Responses to Course Material (11/24)

My biggest takeaway over the past month is how as a class we've been able to improve in our discussions. We had another mood and atmosphere discussion, and it went much better than the first time we did one. The first time, we hardly even agreed on a word and I don't think we managed more than one sentence because we were hardly unified in anything we said. But this time we managed to use our class time efficiently and got our paragraph done before the hour ended. We only were held up because some people didn't realize that the person in the boat was entering the cave and not leaving it.

I think our improvement in this area largely stemmed from our Death of a Salesman discussions. I think that that was the point in the year where we as a class became much better at being quicker in our discussions and zeroing in on what we need to accomplish. We took longer than other hours to get our theme set, but on the last day we had to get the theme done we just locked down and did it and I think that was the day where from then on we've been able to be much more efficient with our discussions in class, at least for my hour.

We also had to write an essay on The Century Quilt and it was terrible. I was only on my second body paragraph when the bell rang. But these essays are something I'm going to need to get good at for the AP exam. Doing the discussion on it later really helped increase my understanding of the poem, but unfortunately on the AP exam we won't be able to discuss the poem we're given together for an hour before being forced to write about it. So the "quick" analysis is something that I'll definitely need to improve on.

In conclusion:

Open Prompt 3

2004 Student Responses

Essay N:

This essay begins with a strong opening paragraph, with a well-developed thesis and smart usage of rhetorical questions in order to strengthen the writing. The writer uses a slew of quotes throughout his body paragraphs as evidence to strengthen his claims (even if a third of them are "we must tend our gardens"), and just in general all of his body paragraphs are very well developed and stay focused on supporting the thesis. The only flaws the AP reader found in this essay was lack in sophistication with regards to language and syntax, along with some minor repetition. I hardly noticed the lack of sophistication, and the repetition seems very nitpicky to me. The AP reader only gave this essay an eight but I actually think that I would give in a nine.

Essay J:

The constant scribbling out of various words in this essay is really annoying. That's not important in the context of grading the essay, but I still wanted to say that. The opening paragraph of the essay is rather simple, but the author compensates by having a strong thesis. The writer does a good job at laying out claims that support the thesis, but the evidence doesn't go very far, and the analysis feels pretty simple. So the author ultimately achieves the objective of the essay, but doesn't go as deep as he could. I think the AP reader's scoring, a six, was the correct one.

Essay U:

This essay is so absurdly short it's almost laughable. The paragraphs are lengthy...but there are only two of them. A thesis is present, it's the first sentence, but it's almost forgotten in the context of the essay because of the terrible organization, which is really hard to get past. The author never goes very far in depth and is very meager when it comes to providing evidence. It's just a really bad essay. But the author does provide a slightly suitable thesis and does stay on topic, so I'd say that he does barely manage the three that the AP reader gave him.

Death of a Salesman: Summary and Analysis

Summary:

Death of a Salesman, a play by Arthur Miller, follows Willy Loman and the seemingly drastic, dramatic collapse of his life. Willy's eldest son Biff returning home is the primary catalyst for this. Willy desperately wants Biff fulfill the dream he sets up for him: a popular, well-liked, successful businessman. However, at the time of the play Biff is 34 and has been travelling around working temporary blue collar jobs. In a series of flashbacks we learn that Biff didn't graduate college because he flunked a math class, that Willy has cheated on his wife Linda with another woman, that his older brother Ben had inspired him, and that Willy is not nearly the businessman that he claims he is. Willy's family, but especially his wife Linda, keep reinforcing the idea in Willy's mind that he's a good salesman, perpetuating the false reality that Willy has seemed to create for himself. Linda and Biff also learn that Willy has had thoughts of suicide. Willy is fired from his job, though he can't seem to understand the reasoning behind it, and loans money from his friend Charlie. However, he won't take a job from Charlie. Biff's meeting with his old "friend" falls through, and although Biff's brother Happy tries to convince Willy that it went swimmingly, Biff tells his father otherwise at a restaurant. Willy can't seem to accept this and breaks down, where in more flashbacks we learn that Biff didn't go to a summer school he could have gone to to graduate after he had earlier caught Willy cheating on Linda. Willy completely snaps at this point, and Linda tells Biff to leave because he's going to end up killing Willy. Biff agrees to go, but another argument breaks out between Biff and Willy. Biff thinks that what he's said will keep Willy from killing himself. But Willy, after talking with a hallucination of his now dead brother Ben, convinces himself to commit suicide, and does so by driving his car off of a bridge as a boat passes. Willy's family may have collected life insurance due to his suicide, but regardless they are able to pay off the house shortly after his death. Willy says earlier that he wants to be a good salesman, to be popular, and well-liked. However, only four people are present at his funeral.

Theme:

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman comments that America's conformist society inhibits the pursuit of one's dreams, which can lead to tragic outcomes.

Analysis:

Main Characters:

Willy Loman - Willy has a somewhat admirable attitude of self-reliance. He wants to provide for his family and he wants to do it all by himself. He wants to succeed on his own merits, through hard work. The problem is that he wants to do this without actually having any merits or work ethic. He's a terrible businessman, and he seems completely fine with stealing and lying if it benefits him (he even cheats on his wife for the sake of business). He's also created his own world for himself, where he is the successful and well-liked businessman that he wants to be. However, semi-frequent relapses back into reality result in numerous contradictions and lies. Eventually, suicide becomes the best "business venture" he can see, and that plus the toll that reality is putting on his mind ultimately leads to his suicide.

Biff Loman - Biff is a lot like Willy when he's a kid. He holds a similar ideological view of the world and is okay with stealing and lying in the same way that Willy is. However, after Biff catches Willy cheating on Linda his worldview is shattered. It remains partially intact, but this leads to Biff not knowing what to do with his life. He works blue collar jobs after failing to graduate from college, but gets pulled back home and tries to go the business route again. However, it's this failure that finally and completely breaks the facade. While Willy is unable to ever confront reality, Biff is. He may take a rather pessimistic view towards his situation as a result, but he's no longer deluding himself. At the end of the play, Biff seems to have more direction than he began with.

Linda Loman - She is one of the biggest reasons that Willy can never confront and deal with reality. She helps maintain the delusion that Willy has built for himself, largely because she fear what will happen if it ever crumbles. She worries that Willy breaking from his delusion will result in his suicide, which is partially correct. She's fiercely protective of Willy, to the point where she's ready to throw out her two sons to save him. She's rather static as a character, however.

Biffy Loman - He's kind of ignored in the grand scheme of things. Willy always focuses on Biff's future instead of Happy's, even though Happy is only a few years younger. Biff does his best to appease everyone at almost all times. Even if this results in massive contradictions and enormous lies, he tries to keep everyone happy and pleased. Him lying to Willy about the result of Biff's meeting with Oliver is the most glaring incident. He also has lots of promiscuous sex with (often married) women with seemingly no intent to ever actually settle down, even though he continuously tells his mother that he'll get married.

Conformity:

Being a businessman is probably not what Willy, deep down, really wants to do. But he sees it as a quick way to success, largely inspired by his brother Ben: "...when I walked into the jungle, I was seventeen. When I walked out I was twenty-one. And, by God, I was rich!" (36-37). Willy pushes himself into this mold because he kind of sees it as the American dream. You go through the system and you come out rich. Only it's not that simple. It's not as simple as Ben makes it seem like it was for him. And Willy doesn't realize that. He fails as a result. He doesn't become the success he imagines, because he thinks by just conforming to the system, things will work out and he'll be happy. He would have been a much better carpenter than a businessman. Biff confronts the issue of conformity though, except he realizes that it's not giving him what he wants, and by the end of the play he's broken the mold and completely resisted the conformity that his father succumbed to. "Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be?" asks Biff in his final argument with his father (105). Willy thinks that by conforming and buying into the system he'll be successful and thus be happy. He gets neither of those things. And when Biff tries to do the same thing, he gets the same result. One of the central points in this play is the contrast there between Willy and Biff. We don't get to find out if Biff ever does become successful or happy after having broken the mold, but I'm led to believe that he's already off to a better start than Willy ever was.

Setting (but really more conformity):

The setting reflects the growing conformity too. The house is, during the flashbacks, in an open area. There's so much left for development, anything could happen in the land surrounding the house. But in the present the house is surrounded by large apartment buildings, locked in place, unwavering and unyielding, they leave no room for change and no room for development. If you travel around you're going to get one thing and one thing only.

China sees the best and worst of America in Boston bombing

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/04/16/china-sees-the-best-and-worst-of-america-in-boston-bombing/

This article doesn't have the strongest voice, I'm sure I could have found articles that had stronger ones. But I wanted to analyze this article's voice mainly because the voice is unique in that it partially represents a voice we don't often see. The author uses colloquial diction, well-used imagery, and focused details to provide a unique outlook on an American tragedy. Unique, because the perspective isn't an American one.

This article is meant to be read by the average person, so it's most fitting that the words used be simpler. "Reverently" is about as challenging as it gets. And when there are words that might be harder to understand (usually Chinese terms), the author goes out of his way to explain them to readers. More educated readers may already know what Weibo is. But to make the article more accessible, since Weibo is mentioned so frequently, the author makes sure to let the readers know that it's "China's massive social media service".

The author uses imagery to enhance the description of China's perspective to the American tragedy. He at one point describes it as "somewhat rosy", adding a color to the dimension. It's just a soft red, but it implies fondness, comfort, admiration. However, the best use of imagery doesn't come from the author of the article, it comes from the Chinese netizens that the author chooses to cite. This ties into detail since it was the author after all that chose to include the quotes, but I'll touch on that later. The Chinese web users use imagery to compare and contrast the response of the US government to that of their own government during similar crises. One user paints a picture of the local police holding a press conference immediately, the public getting involved and helping the runners, and contact information being spread. Through the words, we can see these events play out, only to watch them evaporate when the user compares it to the Chinese reaction to similar events (no reporting until at least six hours after the event, no unity in relief effort).

But what's most probably most important in this article is the use of detail. The voice of this article wouldn't be nearly as compelling and intriguing if the author hadn't picked his details out as well as he did. The author takes an are where not many are too well informed, and does well to present both sides. The Chinese quotes he chooses are all very intellectual and smart comments. There are probably uneducated comments as there are anywhere on the Internet, but that's not the best way to present perspective, so the author does well in his choice of comments. I mentioned a comment earlier where the Chinese web user looks fondly upon the US reaction, but the author contrasts that with an alternative perspective that looks more fondly on China, pointing out how the stricter Chinese security would have prevented such an incident in the first place.

The voice isn't strong in that the author is strongly opinionated one way or another, but I believe it has a strong "smart" voice. The author is presenting unique perspectives that we don't often learn about, and the author does a very good job at delivering that information. And the author effectively uses diction, imagery and detail to do this.